ST. PAUL – Over the next several weeks, Representative Paul Thissen (DFL-Minneapolis) will visit mental health providers and other experts as well as Minnesotans living with mental illnesses. Mental illnesses affect about one in five Minnesotans in a given year. More serious mental illnesses affect about one in every twenty five Minnesotans. And yet, Minnesota's current mental health system fails to respond to the needs of too many children, adults, and families. The goal of the tour is to learn first-hand about the challenges to providing care and the obstacles to receiving care for mental illness.
"Mental illnesses touch nearly every family, every business, every school in the state," said Representative Thissen. "As I travel across Minnesota, mental illness, the scourge of addiction that can sometimes follow on it, and our state's less than effective response to the crisis, comes up everywhere I go. The good news is that there are success stories we can build on and my goal in making these visits is to raise up those success stories and figure out how we can spread them more broadly."
Starting Monday, June 12 and throughout June, Representative Thissen will visit a Crisis Home and Community Behavioral Health Hospital in Fergus Falls, the Anoka Treatment Center, the Northside Community Support Program in north Minneapolis, the Human Development Center in Two Harbors, the Center for Rural Mental Health Studies at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and with employees of the St. Peter State Security Hospital.
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